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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
PvE and PvP speccs balancing
As this was an issue in all the MMOs I've played so far, I'm going to talk about this really early^^ Will there be a difference between skill mechanics in PvE and PvP, maybe even in open world and instanced PvP? The big problem a lot of games with either scaling PvP (WvW, PvP in GW2, 4v4 and 8v8 in SWTOR, 2v2, 3v3 and battlegrounds in WoW) and or PvE and PvP have is that it's impossible to balance different classes for every game mode. This always creates a lot tension between the PvE and the PvP player base as one side screas for nerfs to a certain class while the other side wants buffs. Guild Wars 2 at least tried to implement this but only on a very small scale (for example a knockdown is 1 second in PvP and 2 seconds in PvP). I know it's difficult to maintain the feeling of the class but as balancing is huge challenge in every MMO this would really help :)
Zeyji
Zeyji
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Seeing how this is going to be a sandbox switching between PvE and PvP will be done on the fly so the issues you pointed out could easily become apparent.. As how to fix them? Your guess is as good as mine.
I am so glad you point out this topic, I have played some Sandbox Interactive MMO's; they lost too many player overtime! You need to keep in mind that the MMO(RPG) community right now are mostly veterans, people who dedicate a lot of time playing PvP; this is the same for me. The thing I am wondering; is this full loot PvP? This will give another dimension to the Sandbox aspect! This will be amazing!
But as @zeyji says; Prioritize the balancing of the skills, characters en abilities! Most of the MMO(RPG) underestimate this, try to listen to the community, they are really important for the development.
<strong>Kutweer</strong>! Your companion!
BUT, all items were ONLY crafted by player, no magical (or so less) items. You have to gather your reagents to cast spells, and so on .....
Free loot on corpse could only be implanted in this kind of economic items. After some time you will only find IG some uber guilds of veterans players .....
Then they tempt you to flag yourself pvp by offering prestige for mobs if you do xD but actually you are a bird for the cat for when
players with pvp gear goes against you without it.Thus it actually gimps the player and the outcome of the battle is less skill & more gear dependent.
I wouldn't mind flagging myself pvp,its just for players who have a deathwish if they have no pvp gear.
A shame really,cant just flag yourself pvp whenever you feel like it,you first must go out of your way to farm pvp gear in order to be able to compete
Gear over-importance has alway been a pebble in the shoe for mmo's ,in my opinion
BUT, all items were ONLY crafted by player, no magical (or so less) items. You have to gather your reagents to cast spells, and so on …..
Free loot on corpse could only be implanted in this kind of economic items. After some time you will only find IG some uber guilds of veterans players …..
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i don't think this will be the case, since they already said their flagging system [i]severely deters[/i] griefing. so free loot and even partial/random loot drop will most likely be out of the picture.
[quote quote=1567]I totally agree. It was also that way in swtor, where you as an experienced pvp player with full optimized gear with aoe spec could kill up to 5 pve players by yourself.
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i thought that was the whole point of pvp anyway but maybe i was wrong... >.> and consider the following, pvp IS the endgame so it shouldn't come as a surprise if a pvp player will always have the edge against a pve player, which is already true regardless of the scenario. that being said tho, i'm not in favor of any pvp specific gear, the game mechanics alone should be more than enough to "fix" any discrepancy.
1. the problem of balancing both pve and pvp at the same time
2. How gearing should work for pve and pvp
They are tied together with each other in a lot of ways.
If anyone has played the beginning of any WoWs expansion and done world pvp, it's generally pretty fun. Give it a month or 2 and all the dps are extremely geared and everyones 1 shotting eachother and its an atrocious experience. They fix it in instanced pvp by making gear matter very little. I'm not sure if making gear matter in world pvp is a design decision or something Blizzard simply cannot do.
Intrepid can save themselves a lot of trouble I believe by making the game, stat wise, rather static. It makes balancing so much easier when you don't have to balance the crazy scaling that can happen with huge stat spikes. Certainly one of the hardest balancing tasks the WoW devs have to pay attention to is dps, healing and tank scaling. With so many moving parts how can they make every class and build scale the same? They simply can not and it limits design space as well as forcing them to put a lot of time and resources into making sure that part of the game is balanced.
All of that can be skipped and a game can focus on cool and fun mechanics rather than % multipliers by just making stats (aka gear) matter very little power wise.
To preface this I'd just like to say I'm not sure this is the best solution but GW2 chooses to actually just end gear progression at a certain point. Once you are full ascended gear you are done with progression as far as stats go and it's been that way ever since. The reason I say I'm not sure this is the best solution is that character progression, that is most often linked to gear, is a huge motivating factor for most mmo players.
Even with GW2s progression ending the stat gains are minimal and you can do almost as well with brand new lvl 80 exotic gear as you can ascended. So what I'm proposing here I suppose is to use that minimal stat gain model and just keep it steady throughout the games existence. Of course this still comes with scaling issues because eventually after the game has existed a long time stats are going to be much higher but it gives the developers time rather than every 3 months massive stat increases that throw balance every which way.
Anyways. A lot to be thought about here and I'm sure the devs are considering these things.
Its almost like there is some kind of obsession with gearpower in such a degree it drains all the fun out of games for me lately.
In my guild in wildstar they expect their members to carry around a full dps set gear and a full support/tank set.Like gear defines your character and all that your character is worth...
Even if I want to play together they sometimes ask "what's your gear like?"..I'm so fed up with that I put people on ignore for asking.
Thats not the reason I play games;funtimes is..Real life is disappointing enough as it is and now they ruin funtimes even in games with all this crazy shenanigans.
One thing that I found heartbreaking is this youtube about an old guy who's favorite mmo will be shut down in 2017,when asked what he'll miss the most he replies
"A time to call my own"
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPiBrIXCiQE">Grandpa and his Asheron's Call</a>
In essence,thats all that truly matters..when you get caught up in the wicked obsession within games of dps output,gear,..Its no longer about the funtime you'll have ingame.
Maybe thats personal and maybe I have played games for too long and simply cant take it any longer.I'd rather eat battery acid and use that feces as a facial mask,than getting caught up in
these min-maxing gear games you automatically get drawn in at endgame.
Its pretty sad,but most players see it like time vs reward and in things like dungeons they skip content..They do not truly value content.
Maybe cloth and armor could have some kind of quality like protection,warmth,...
then they could make the environment matter in pve and pvp alike.Where you have to consider how you go about your way in a snowstorm for example,dunno.
Add environmental traps like collapsing pillars,...protection on gear could help there,like a plate armor could reduce the damage of the collapsing pillar
but light armor allows you to evade it.Each type of armor should probably come with advantages and disadvantages,like with heavy you'd swing weapons slower,move slower through rivers,...
More and more I start to think that a shift of focus with the mechanics is needed,in order for games to be refreshing enough for me to enjoy them.
The main problem with modern games is they are all bonus and no penalty.
This meant two things;
a. new players with no bonus were lambs to the slaughter...skilled or not.
b. hybrids were never competitive as they could never scale stats to the same degree as a specialist.
So the typical answer was to use soft caps to reduce the performance gap between builds.
This worked, but the cost was to dumb down variety and make everyone much the same by spreading points instead.
So how can you allow people to be unique through progressive variation without giving away advantage through specialisation ?
This was actually answered and common at the very early stages of gaming where power came at a cost...unlike today.
When someone starts they have little of any bonuses...but this should not make them weak, but merely the default neutral build.
This can only happen if every new progression buff (active or passive) comes with an equal and opposite penalty
That way you may have way more unique buffs than a new player that bolster your offensive ability....but they also come with unique defensive penalties, that the new player does not suffer from either.
Thus the new player is vastly different from the uniquely skilled veteran player specialist..but they remain perfectly balanced regardless.
Duality you see. Its the very heart of balance.
The developers have also said there will not be 2 sets of gear. There will simply be gear. You can get gear in a lot of ways but no "arena pvp gear" vs "world boss pve gear." It is just gear and it is used for both....so Wow Arena fans or GW2 instance pvp'ers you'll have to work for your gear and that is going to bring you into this vast and expansive world that the creators will have spent a great deal of time preparing for you to discover. So yeah no idling in towns and pvp'ing your way to glory and esports stardom. That isn't this game. This game is a fully functional MMORPG not a game that tailors itself to pure pvpers or pure pve'ers. You can get away with doing that okay, but you won't have the best gear, the longest life expectancy, or the deepest pockets. The multi-faceted players will shine here not the one dimensional players. "You can't have everything, and that's okay." Risk vs reward....your best in slot gear isn't going to come from an arena match you never had to leave town to get. Your best in slot crafted gear, isn't going to come from sitting in town all day....the materials are going to be from world bosses and deep dark caves and far off places that you will have to venture to or pay someone to venture in your place. And if someone is doing all the risk, you better believe their reward is going to come at a premium price. Especially to give up those rare materials that they went far and wide to collect for the crafter that never left town.
What we do not know is how they will balance classes in pvp....Is it based on large scale? small scale? 1v1s? And how will they balance boss encounters with the abilities and gear available and will they avoid gear creep in later phases.
Lineage 2:
1. Combat points - Another health bar that is only affected by PvP. This bar must diminish before a player can have an effect on your HP. It's much smaller than HP but acts as a buffer and prevention for griefing while your attacked by mobs.
2. Gear that is PvP/PvE oriented - They implemented gear that seemed extremely similar but would give more defense or attack towards PvP or PvE depending on your set.
@Rune_Relic I completely agree with your remarks about softcaps. Its better to reduce the effectiveness of stat increase at some point. This motivates players to spread resources instead of putting everything into one stat. Players with BiS gear mainly become more versatile instead of just dealing tons more dmg.
An other mechanic that works (but is somewhat controversial) is dmg scaling. For example, by reducing dmg taken from players by 20% you effectively increase their health pool by 20%. Doing this effectively buffs healing by 20% so its not that easy to balance.
The most important thing is preventing that ppl get one-shot and actually have a chance to defend themselves when they get jumped by a sneaky rogue.